Numerical ControlOne of the most fundamental concepts in the area of advanced manufacturing technologies is numerical control (NC)
Prior to the advent of NC, all machine tools were manual operated and controlled
Among the many limitations associated with manual control machine tools, perhaps none is more prominent than the limitation of operator skills
With manual control, the quality of the product is directly related to and limited to the skills of the operator
Numerical control represents the first major step away from human control of machine tools
Numerical control means the control of machine tools and other manufacturing systems though the use of prerecorded, written symbolic instructions
Rather than operating a machine tool, an NC technician writes a program that issues opera